Beer Forum

Okay, so I brewed up a batch of wheat beer and put it in the fermenter. The plan was to let it get down to pitching temp overnight while my starter finished getting ready. This morning I wake up and see the brew has already started a small ferment? Do I pitch the yeast anyway and hope it will take over from whatever wild yeast may have found it's way in there?

Cheers,

Dukester

I'm far from an expert ... but I would pitch the yeast as soon as possible. Hopefully you have enough yeast to overpower whatever is going on right now.

You will get some bubbling at the wort cools, so hopefully that is it ... but I believe it usually pulls air instead of pushing it.

good luck ... on the bright side, even if it turns out not quite right, it still has alcohol ...

If it's fermenting before you pitch yeast, there may be some wild yeast in there. Pitch your yeast now.

Pitch now! Pitch now!

It's possible that you just seeing CO2 escaping from solution and not fermentation. I would pitch your yeast and hope for the best. Worst come to worst you can always dump it in the garden or donate it to a frat house.

Anything is possible. I don't honestly know what I was seeing. I chilled the wort to 80F before I went to bed, put the primary in my nice chilly utility room and it was at 68F when I got up in the morning and I had tiny bubbles working their way up from the bottom and very slight activity in the airlock. It looked like fermentation to me but I honestly don't know how. Never had it happen in any of my previous batches. I pitched my starter once I had it worked up to 1L the next day and it seems to have take over. Now I have normal vigorous wheat beer fermentation.

I'm just trying to figure out what was happening in my primary before I pitched my yeast.

Cheers,

Dukester

Let us know what happens, and how it turns out.

It'll probably be the best beer you've ever made. Save them all for comps.